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Schlagwort: quotes

Nehmt ihnen das Geld weg!

WoZ: Die einzig lesenswerte schweizer Zeitung!

WoZ: Es superreich(t) jetzt!
WoZ: Es superreich(t) jetzt!

Ich habe ein ziemlich schlechtes Gewissen, den geklauten Inhalt der WoZ zum 1. Mai hier zu posten – aber alleine schon das Titelbild nicht schweizweit per Zwangsverordnung und Strafandrohung zu verbreiten, hielte ich für ein Verbrechen, geschweige denn von der Einleitung zum Hauptartikel:

Bei der Lohnverteilung, bei der Abgabenpolitik, bei der Vermögensentwicklung: In der Schweiz findet eine gigantische und systematische Umverteilung von unten nach oben statt. Das belegt der «Verteilungsbericht» des Schweizerischen Gewerkschaftsbundes, der diese Woche erschienen ist.

Wie gigantisch die Umverteilung ist, zeigt sich beim Betrachten der Zahlen: Das Lohnwachstum der Mehrheit der Beschäftigten blieb unter ihrem Beitrag an die Produktivität, die Zahl der Gehaltsmillionäre hat sich hingegen in den letzten zwanzig Jahren verfünffacht. Systematisch wird die Umverteilung von der Politik ermöglicht: Direkte Steuern, die progressiv wirken, werden durch indirekte Abgaben ersetzt. Mit der Folge, dass einer Familie mit tiefem Einkommen von ihrem Lohnzuwachs noch ein Zehntel, einer Familie mit hohem Einkommen alles bleibt (vgl. Seite 3).

Dass die Umverteilung mit voller Absicht erfolgt, wurde diesen Frühling exemplarisch an der Unternehmenssteuerreform II ersichtlich: Nachdem bekannt wurde, dass sie für Aktionärinnen Steuergeschenke in Milliardenhöhe bringt, von denen der verantwortliche Finanzminister Hans-Rudolf Merz im Abstimmungskampf nichts gesagt hatte, trat das Parlament nochmals zusammen. Nicht wider besseres Wissen, sondern im besseren Wissen beschloss es, die Steuergeschenke zu akzeptieren.

Auf der WoZ-Site ist weiterhin ein 10-Punkteplan zu finden, wie wir den Reichen das Geld wegnehmen können. Damit ich nicht in falschem Licht da stehe: Ich will es ja nicht haben, zumindest nicht direkt. Aber wenn unser aller Lebenshaltungkosten etwas sinken, wäre ich um meinen kleinen Anteil natürlich nicht traurig – so wenig wie Du! Dafür würde ich es begrüssen, wenn wir für energie- und materialintensive Produkte und Dienstleistungen der Kostenwahrheit entsprechend bezahlen müssten; die Lebenszyklen heutiger Produkte sind um ein mehrfaches zu kurz. Allerdings könnten diese helfen, für eine Neue Welt Produkte schnell und flächendeckend durch effizientere und langlebigere zu ersetzen – wenn man sich dazu entschliessen würde.

Wer den Film nicht gesehen hat, muss das unbedingt nach holen: Let’s make money, ein Stück Kunst!

ZDF-Doku: Finanzkriese 2.0 – nichts gelernt?

Blog Action Day: Poverty — Poor at Heart

Aber ich vermute, wer hier auf meinem Blog landet, ist sich all dessen schon bewusst. Ich kann nicht viel mehr sagen als «Du bist nicht alleine – go for it!», lass Dich nicht unterkriegen! :peace:

Published inEconomyPoliticsThink!

Today’s gold is black – Torrow’s gold is limpid

Blog Action day 2010: Water«Water, thou hast no taste, no color, no odor; canst not be defined, art relished while ever mysterious. Not necessary to life, but rather life itself, thou fillest us with a gratification that exceeds the delight of the senses.» (Quote by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, From Wind, Sand and Stars, 1939)

Do you know Armajaro, an investment firm based in London, specialised within the cocoa and coffee markets? A week ago I read about them the first time: The WochenZeitung (German) wrote that Armajaro bought cocoa beans on the European market. Above 240’000 metric tons, worth over $ 1’000’000’000, to be exact, sometime between July and September it seems – the equivalent of almost the entire supply of the commodity in Liffe-registered warehouses across Europe. Or about 7% of the annually, global production. But guess, this was not the first time.

Cocoa Flower
Cocoa Flower (Dieter Schütz/pixelio.de)

In August 2002 Armajaro acquired 204’000 tons of cocoa beans and, as it seems, gained $ 64’000’000 out of the deal (Talk about finding a golden ticket in a bar of chocolate). Mr. Ward, the head and founder of Armajaro, told The Daily Telegraph in 2002: «We are not trying to inflate the market.» He founded Armajaro in 1998, which is today one of the top three players in the cocoa market, in which prices have risen 150 percent over the past two-and-a-half years.

Armajaros highest-paid director received a salary of $ 8’500’000  last year, $ 1’000’000 more than in 2008. Mr Ward manages Armajaro’s flagship CC+ Fund, which specialises in cocoa and coffee. He achieved a double-digit growth in the value of the fund in the year to September. His fund forms part of Armajaro Asset Management, which has over $ 1’500’000’000 under management. I love zeros visualized. And Mr. Ward too, it seems. (source: www.africanagricultureblog.com)

This is a blog post for the Blog Action Day 2010 about water, so what I’m writing about cocoa and abuser of nearly one million childs (Ghana only)? About that $ 7 million committed by the International Chocolate and Cocoa Industry (Harkin-Engel Protocol) towards addressing the situation of worst form of child labour in Cocoa farms over 5 year was inadequate, compared to the countless zeros above?

Water makes money: the film
Water makes money: the film

Ever heard of Nestle? 12 % of the $ 112’600’000’000 annual sales are made from chocolate, 27 % from drinks. Nestle is working hard on privatization of water. There’s a very good new documentary about water on this topic. Veolia and Suez, the world’s biggest water multinational companies, are already active in at least 69 countries on all five continents. More than 80 % of the water supply is still in the hands of the public sector. Every time, however, a town council in financial fetters asks around to be relieved of this burden, Veolia and Suez come knocking at the door. I’m not an highly educated economist – but I don’t need to understand a gearbox to see what goes in and what comes out. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, redistribution of income from the bottom up, what equates the neo-liberal concept. Privatization of public infrastructure is a giant vacuum cleaner for the small men’s pockets. They pray «it’s getting cheaper», we pray «oh really, yeah, sure, cool!», then it doesn’t, but it’s to late. And if it’s cheap, it costs lives. And for the counter value of only 12 litres of milk from the nearby farmer you get a 32 GB piece of USB-hightech made of diverse highly energy intensive special materials from all over the world  produced on microscopic scale in a dustfree production hall on the other side of the globe. While many places and air and water got polluted in the process. For 3 gallons of milk! And if the newspaper tells it’s the only good and true system, then it must be true, ain’t it?

Once water will be dealt via companies quoted on the stock exchange while there is a global shortage – man-made, what else? – the cocoa game will have started on water too. I don’t need to guess who the winners will be: Those who’s earnings rise one million dollars per year – and that’s not you and me. We and 99.9 % of mankind will be on the losers side. Today, unsafe water kills more peaple than war. The most bitter conflicts of the next 50 years won’t be over oil. Become aware of virtual water – that, by way of example, one kilogram of beef costs 15’500 litres. One kilogram wheat costs 1’300 litres.

Global Awareness
Global Awareness

What can we do to save water, environment, ourselves for a New World? It is all about the same with modern problems in the 21st century: Education. Don’t believe anyone (not even me), think for your self, think holistic. And then vote! If you can, politically, and not for the neo-liberal and neocon moneymakers. Buy fair. Get informed. Vote by buying stuff that don’t hurt anyone. Don’t buy from Nestle and the like! Avoid shopping at Lidl, Aldi, Walmart and suchlike. Try to buy local stuff. Teach your and others children. Inform others. Don’t invest if you get more than, let’s say 7 or 8 % return – or someone far or not so far away will die for that, well, the fund manager, by stroke of luck. :whistle:

Or the war on bottled water might get globally, as the world tends to import American habits. Or we might get millions of environmental refugees, in addition to the millions of political, war and economic fugitives. We teach our children to share – I just wonder why we adults don’t do this. Maybe you know?

Neuzeit – Mittelalter
Place name sign, above: modern era / below: middle ages (Gerd Altmann/pixelio.de)

P.S: Speak german? While trying to translate american and german billions and milliards once more, I stumbled over this discussion, which is 24 posts about 3 zeros less or more. And I thought I’m confused about this topic…

Published inEconomyPoliticsThink!

Food poker: Fooling people out of their food

Just want to share a meaningful picture.

Right to food (www.rechtaufnahrung.ch)
Right to food (www.rechtaufnahrung.ch)

See the faces in this excellent picture! See yourself? If you’d like to learn more, www.righttofood.org or en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_food is a good place to start.

“In a world overflowing with riches, it is a outrageous scandal that more than 852 million people suffer hunger and malnutrition and that every year over 6 million children die of starvation and related causes. We must take urgent action now.” (Jean Ziegler, April 2008)

In other words, imagine every 7th human you see on street has nothing or not enough to eat. Sit on a shopping malls gallery, watch people passing by while thinking about this…

Cheers

Published inEconomyPoliticsThink!

Carnegie Mellon Lecture: Global Climate Change

On YouTube I stumbled upon this actual lecture about Climate Change. It is mainly in three parts:

  • Facts about climate change from an environmental point of view
  • Needs and possibilities to master the challenge
  • Economical views on the subject

The question of why America sends annual 300 Mrd $ to foreign countries for oil, which is answered with Lenin’s quote „The capitalists are so hungry for profits that they will sell us the rope to hang them with.“, and the addition „…and they will send us the money to buy the rope“ is a very typical view for Americans somehow, I think. Cowboy Smiley

Nevertheless, with todays technics our vehicles could be 50 %, buildings 80 % more efficient without change in lifestyle. Acting is not a question of money or ideology, but of intelligence.

What not comes in numbers here is the benefit in public health due to better air and water quality. Nothing is really new here, but the arguments may help you out in the field…

(Dr. Lester Lave, Co-Director Carnegie Mellon Electrical Industry Center; Dr. M. Granger Morgan, Director of the Climate Decision Making Center; Edward Rubin, Professor in Engineering and Public Policy and Mechanical Engineering, 1:15)

If you wanna know it really exactly, watch the following video too, which outlines the research and the process behind the Global Climate Change Report to the Bush administration in 2002. So yes, they know: Global warming is fact, it’s due human activities, without sun activities being a reason etc.

(And yes, this is a very dry one, but gives an excellent overview on the complexity of the matter, if you’d like to be fed with data, numbers and formulas by Ralph Cicerone, Chancellor of the University of California at Irvine, 1:10)

Published inEcologyScience